Our prehistory as a species before the great empires of Egypt and Assyria is basically a mystery shrouded by the years. Nothing remains of our nomadic existence prior to the founding of cities except for a few artifacts scattered here and there in Africa, China and a few other places. One can’t help but wonder what came before.

The Yagahl tribe lives peacefully in a post-ice Age valley where herds of mastodon placidly migrate every spring, providing the tribe with most of their food, clothing and shelter. Like the aboriginals of North America once the Europeans showed up, the Yagahl are finding it more and more difficult to keep things going; the herds are getting sparser and appearing less frequently and this being the stone age, nobody’s quite got the knack of the gathering part of hunting and gathering yet.

The Shaman, known only as Old Mother (Hammond) has a vision when an orphan is found on the steppes; this blue-eyed girl (Unwin) is going to become the woman of the strongest warrior in the tribe. Together, they would lead the tribe from their current existence and into a time of prosperity and plenty. The current holder of the number one warrior (Beazley) is less sanguine about it; he doesn’t think that the tribe has long enough to wait for the girl to grow up, so he skedaddles, leaving his infant son in the care of his best friend Tic’Tic (Curtis).

Years later, the young son, known as D’Leh (Strait) which is held – the German word for hero – spelled backwards has lived with the stigma of a father who deserted the tribe, something that is the height of cowardice in their culture. He has fallen in love with the blue-eyed girl, who has grown up into a gorgeous woman named Evolet (Belle). Still, he has no chance at being the tribe’s alpha male – that would seem to be the destiny of Ka’Ren (Zinal), a buff, burly homo sapiens. Still, when the mastodon herd arrives, it is the determined D’Leh who gets the kill, but as he sheepishly admits to Tic’Tic later, it was a matter of luck and not courage that took down the mastodon.

Things get really dicey when the tribe is attacked by “four-legged demons” – slavers on horseback, who kill some of the tribe and take the rest as slaves, including most of the healthy men, but worse yet, also Evolet, who has caught the eye of their leader (Badra). D’Leh vows to go after the woman he loves, also knowing that the tribe won’t survive without most of its hunting force. Tic’Tic decides to go with him, as does a reluctant Ka’Ren. They are followed by Baku (Baring), a young teen whose mother was murdered by the slavers.

They follow them over the mountain range, which nobody from the tribe has ever done, and into a steamy jungle where they and the raiding party are attacked by giant carnivorous dodos. Ka’Ren and Baku manage to get captured by the raiders when D’Leh tries to free Evolet prematurely. Tic’Tic also gets injured.

Following the raiders out of the jungle and onto a grassy African plain, D’Leh encounters a Sabretooth tiger and frees him from a trap. The grateful tiger spares D’Leh’s life and later shows up when a hostile tribe of Africans threaten D’Leh and Tic’Tic with spears. A prophecy of a hero who talks to tigers instantly turns D’Leh into a VIP and the tribe is very ready to have D’Leh lead them against the raiders, who are building a vast city with a gigantic pyramid with slave labor – essentially the tribe mates of the Yagahl and all the veldt. However, it’s a tall order; given that the raiders outnumber the peace-loving tribes. However, if D’Leh can convince the slaves to revolt, they might have a chance, but is he the leader that the prophecies say he is?

The cast is mostly unknowns both at the time this was filmed and years later although both Camille Belle and Cliff Curtis have gone on to pretty decent careers since. Of course you have Omar Sharif – who is the off-screen narrator – who is a legend and deservedly so. There’s not a lot for them and their lesser-renowned cast mates to do. The main thrust of the movie is the gee-wow effects and not the story so few manage to rise above the cliché strata although Belle is certainly beautiful to look at and Curtis manages a nice performance.

The effects of the creatures and the raider city are really mind-boggling. If you choose a movie for great special effects and an imaginative setting, this one has both of those in spades. Although Emmerich is not an impressive director, he is at least an imaginative one, and he brings a vision to life of a world nobody has ever seen. In many ways, you really don’t know what to expect next since D’Leh and his fellow Yagahl who have never left their valley don’t know either. The pacing is nice, although the movie tends to hiccup when they move into the romantic part of the story.

The story is…ummmmm, how shall I say this…superfluous. I think the movie might have benefited from some stronger characters and better writing, but quite frankly, there’s nothing that’s really egregious here on that score. Most of the technical work – the music, the cinematography, the editing, etc. – is competently done, but nothing really breaks new ground except the subject matter itself.

This got some pretty harsh reviews, and I can’t say that I don’t see the flaws. Yes, there’s nothing really new here story-wise, but because you are being transported to a place nobody has really even attempted to show in film, it’s kind of a wash. Go in with low expectations for characterization and story and high expectations for action and special effects and you’ll be fine..

WHY RENT THIS: Spectacular special effects. Omar Sharif’s narration.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: No plot to speak of. Writing is poor and characters kind of all blend together eventually.

FAMILY MATTERS: There is a scene of human sacrifice, and some of the critters are extremely menacing, particularly the dodo-raptors, who are a cross between the raptors of Jurassic Park and the angry giant birds of Mysterious Island.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The constellation referred to in the film as “the sign of the warrior” is actually Orion. That constellation also played a key role in a previous Emmerich film Stargate.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: The Blu-Ray edition adds a featurette (not on the DVD version) that focuses on author Graham Hancock whose Fingerprints of the Gods opines an advanced civilization that existed during the epoch the movie is set in. Although primarily about his own theories, the featurette does tie in with the movie somewhat.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN

A DC cop who had just been turned down for the secret service is touring the White House when it comes under a terrorist attack. Don’t you hate when that happens? In any case, he needs to rescue the president, keep his daughter safe and keep our country from collapsing. All in a day’s work, right?

Rating: PG-13 (for prolonged sequences of action and violence including intense gunfire and explosions, some language and a brief sexual image)

20 Feet from Stardom

(Radius) Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Bruce Springsteen.The world’s greatest backup singers of the rock and roll era get together to reminisce on their careers as some of the most recognizable voices in music whose names you don’t know. A big hit as the opening night film at this year’s Florida Film Festival. Catch my review here.

Copperhead

(Brainstorm) Billy Campbell, Angus Macfadyen, Peter Fonda, Francois Arnaud. A pacifist farmer in upstate New York defies his neighbors and his government in 1862 as the Civil War rages. The resulting schism in the community thoroughly illustrates the fact that war isn’t only fought by its combatants and it can have a terrible cost on the community at large.

Fill the Void

(Sony Classics) Hadras Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir. A Hassidic family in Tel Aviv is rocked to the core when the eldest daughter dies in childbirth. When it looks like the widower will be matched with a Belgian woman, taking their only link to their deceased child with him, the family proposes that the younger daughter (who is betrothed to someone else) instead marry the widower. She now must choose between family duty and the call of her heart.

Ghanchakkar

(UTV) Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Rajesh Sharma. A master safe cracker decides to do one last heist before retiring and so he does – the big score he’s always dreamed of. The gang decides to split up and lie low until the heat dies down. However, when they reunite to collect their cash, they realize the safe cracker has had some sort of accident and has completely lost his memory. Or is he paying a rather dangerous game? They must stick around and find out which it is.

The Heat

(20th Century Fox) Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demian Bichir, Marlon Wayans. An uptight FBI agent and a loose cannon Boston cop team up to take down a ruthless drug lord – if they don’t end up killing each other first. Oh and by the way – said agent and cop are women. This could get real ugly.

We often bandy about the term “patriotic” to imply our loyalty to our country. In reality, that has come to mean standing whenever the national anthem is played and making sure to cast our votes in each and every election. Most of us don’t even do that. There was a time, however, when being a patriot was dangerous; a man’s home, family and life were the collateral for his ideals.

Benjamin Martin (Gibson) has plenty of collateral. Although he mourns his recently deceased wife, he has seven wonderful children, a prosperous farm and as a hero of the French and Indian War, the respect and admiration of his community. However, the clouds of war brew on the horizon. The colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia are in full revolt against a tyrannical English king, and are soliciting support from the other colonies, many of whom have already given it. Martin’s South Carolina still debates the issue, but despite an impassioned plea by Martin to attempt other solutions (followed by a dire, Cassandra-esque warning that the war would be fought in the streets of their hometowns to be witnessed by their children), South Carolina chooses to fight for freedom. Martin chooses not to, but his passionate son Gabriel (Ledger) enlists in the Continental Army against his father’s wishes.

Two years pass. Lord Cornwallis (Wilkinson) has taken Charleston and as Martin predicted, the fighting is getting close to home. Following a skirmish in which Gabriel participates just outside the Martin farm, Martin and his household tend to the wounded on both sides. Into this scene of compassion canters the despicable Col. Tavington (Isaacs), who orders the wounded Colonials shot, Gabriel arrested and hung as a spy (for carrying dispatches on his person), the house torched and the livestock killed. In the ensuing pandemonium, Martin’s second-oldest son Thomas is shot before the horrified gaze of his family by Tavington, who sneers “Stupid boy!” in his best Snidely Whiplash fashion, and then gallops off, leaving Thomas to die in his father’s arms.

The despicable colonel forgets one of life’s basic rules (or at least one of the basic rules of 90s movies); don’t mess with Mel Gibson (you’d think the Brits would have learned that after Braveheart). He and his two remaining sons carry off a daring rescue of Gabriel, whereupon the elder Martin enlists himself and takes charge of a South Carolina militia whose job is to occupy Cornwallis and keep him from marching north to finish off George Washington. The militiamen do this at great cost, as Tavington carries out atrocity after atrocity.

This isn’t going to play very well in England, as the English here are portrayed as either sadistic, vain, arrogant and/or somewhat stupid. That’s OK, though; this is really our story, although ironically it’s being told by Roland Emmerich, the German director of Independence Day and Godzilla.

The battle scenes are terrifying, as armies get nose to nose and muzzle to muzzle, firing at point blank range at each other, standing in a line and praying that the volley of musket fire will pass them by, all the while cannonshot take the arms, legs and heads off of hapless soldiers in the front ranks. The violence and brutality are excessive at times, but the carnage is necessary to place in context the bravery of farmers, untrained in war, standing in the face of devastating British muskets firing with deadly accuracy into their ranks. Gibson is solid, though his performance is less compelling than in Braveheart, to which this will inevitably be compared. Here, he is a rough-hewn man with a dangerous temper boiling beneath the surface. Ledger is terrific – this was the performance that established him in Hollywood after success in his native Australia.

The Patriot is a bit over-the-top in places, and a bit predictable in others, leading to a half-star penalty. Be warned; this is a gut-wrenching, emotional movie. Da Queen rated it five hankies and there was a lot of snuffling going on in the packed theater in which we saw “The Patriot.” Da Queen was red-eyed hours after the movie was over.

The Patriot reminds us of the sacrifices that were made to give this country life. Men gave of life and limb, watched sons, fathers, brothers and friends perish, left their homes and families to exist in brutal conditions with the Continental army, and often watched their life’s work go up in smoke. Too often, we forget the commitment that created the liberty we cherish. That’s just the first step in losing it.

WHY RENT THIS: Intense battle sequences. Gibson is at his best here. Ledger makes a big splash in his debut.

FAMILY MATTERS: There’s a good deal of war violence here, some of it quite graphic.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The house used as Aunt Charlotte’s (Richardson) plantation was the same one used as the residence of Forrest Gump. Benjamin Martin has seven children, the same number Mel Gibson had at the time of filming.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: There is a featurette on the real people these fictional characters were based on and the lengths the movie went to for historical accuracy in terms of uniforms and so on (it’s a shame they couldn’t have been more accurate in terms in more important places).

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $215.3M on a $110M production budget; the movie broke even in it’s theatrical release.

The greatest writer in the history of the English language is William Shakespeare. There’s no argument on that point whatsoever. However, there are those who believe that Shakespeare, the son of an illiterate glassblower, never wrote the things he did and in fact couldn’t have.

There is a contingent of scholars, known as Oxfordians, who believe that Edward de Vere (Ifans), the 17th Earl of Oxford, was in fact the author of Shakespeare’s works. The movie takes up that cause, opining that de Vere, unable to publish his plays due to his father in law, William Cecil (Thewlis), a devout pilgrim and his wife Anne (Baxendale).

De Vere is aware that the Cecils – William and his conniving hunchbacked son Robert (Hogg) are plotting to put James, the King of Scotland on the throne when Elizabeth (Redgrave), who is aging, ill and without a will finally passes away. He believes that would be a catastrophe for the kingdom. He wants to sway the tide of public opinion in a different direction, and he notices that the wildly popular theatrical plays can do that. He enlists the young playwright Ben Johnson (Arnesto) to publish and produce de Vere’s plays under Johnson’s name.

However, things go a bit awry when Johnson, wishing to have a career of his own work, hesitates to take credit for his first produced play and an ambitious, drunken actor named Will Shakespeare (Spall) steps forward and takes credit. The die is cast therefore and court intrigue begins to swirl.

Shakespeare’s plays become enormously popular and the man, dumber than a rock but clever in a streetwise sense, extorts money from De Vere when he figures out who the true author of his plays are. In the meantime, De Vere supports the claim of the Earl of Essex (Reid) for the throne, a claim which is also supported by De Vere’s close friend the Earl of Southampton (Samuel) whose ties to De Vere are deeper than anyone supposes.

The Cecils have the aging Queen’s ear and despite her very plain affection for the Earl of Oxford, it appears she’s is going to let the Cecils seize the power in England and it will take a very bold plan and some very stirring words to turn things in the favor of the Earl of Oxford and his supporters.

Emmerich, better known for big budget apocalyptic films like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day has long had this on the back-burner as a vanity project. This is definitely a departure for him and one has to admire his willingness to move out of his comfort zone.

To his credit, his recreation of Elizabethan London on German soundstages is incredible, from the muddy streets laid with lumber so that the noblemen may walk about the city without muddying their boots, to the magnificent estates inhabited by nobles and courtiers to the intimate setting of the Globe Theater itself.

That said, the historical accuracy here is to put it kindly somewhat shaky which writer John Orloff admits, but rightly points out that Shakespeare himself was notorious for bending the facts of history to suit his dramatic needs. Some of the facts that have been bent will only outrage scholars but there is certainly some fudging in order to make the case for Oxford.

Nonetheless the entertainment value is up there. Ifans, known for playing kind of whacky and often stoned-out roles in his career plays a literal Renaissance man who manages to keep to his conviction of avoiding bloodshed and resolving things in a peaceable manner. He is opposed by forces that are both malevolent and devious, and he is intelligent enough to sidestep most of the pitfalls, although he in the end….well, we’ll let you find out for yourself.

The British cast here have some pretty solid pedigrees, including the Oscar-nominated Redgrave and Jacobi, one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of the time. Most of the rest of the cast are well known on the London stage or from television roles, although Thewlis will be familiar to Harry Potter fans.

Some might find the plot a bit murky, particularly in regards to the ins and outs of court intrigue in the court of Elizabeth I near the end of her reign. Still, while I disagree with Emmerich and Orloff’s conclusions vis a vis the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays (as do most scholars) I did like the discussion raised here not to mention the authenticity of the setting.

REASONS TO GO: A fine recreation of Elizabethan England with some solid performances all around, particularly from Ifans.

REASONS TO STAY: Takes a goodly amount of historical liberties. Twists and turns of court politics might be confusing for some.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence and a bit of sexuality, not to mention a few adult themes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Redgrave and Richardson who play older and younger versions of Elizabeth are mother and daughter in real life.

HOME OR THEATER: I thought it appeared very snazzy on the big screen; Emmerich seems to thrive in the larger-than-life environment.

PUSS IN BOOTS

Everyone’s favorite swashbuckling feline from the Shrek series gets a film of his own as we get to see his humble origin story. Here he teams up with cat burglar Kitty Softpaws and the legendary Humpty Dumpty to save the town. I’m wondering when all the king’s horses show up.

All’s Faire in Love

(Patriot Pictures) Christina Ricci, Matthew Lillard, Ann-Margaret, Cedric the Entertainer. A football star working off non-attendance at his Renaissance literature class and an investment banker who really wants to be an actress join a theatrical troupe at a Renaissance Faire. They must fend off a rival troupe in order to win the coveted Shakespearean stage spot and perhaps even fall in love.

Anonymous

(Columbia) Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis. There are scholars who contend that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays he is credited with. Director Roland Emmerich of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow contends that Shakespeare was a front for a member of the royal court for whom anonymity was a necessity.

In Time

(20th Century Fox) Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Alex Pettyfer. In the not-too-distant future, people stop aging at 25 and time has become the new currency. When you run out of time, you run out of life. When Will Salas, who lives minute to minute, gets an unexpected windfall, it upsets the balance of things and triggers some very desperate people to do some very dangerous things.

RA.One

(EROS International Worldwide) Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt. This is the prequel to the enormously popular found footage horror series. It depicts, in the 80s, how the supernatural forces that beset Katie and Kristi came into their lives as young girls.

The Rum Diary

(FilmDistrict) Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins. From Hunter S. Thompson’s first novel, this is the story of a rumpled American journalist from the 1950s who leaves behind the New York City beat for a more laid-back lifestyle in Puerto Rico. There he discovers shady land developers, disreputable newspapermen, sexy Connecticut debutantes and perhaps a vestige of his own dignity.

Nearly every culture has an end-of-the-world scenario, as does almost every religion. What would happen if one of them actually came to pass?

Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) is a junior geologist working for the U.S. Government. When he gets a call from colleague and old friend Dr. Tsurutani (Mistry) summoning him to India, he is happy to go but a bit mystified by the urgency. When his friend shows him figures regarding the temperature at the earth’s core, Helmsley immediately gets on a plane and crashes a fundraiser where presidential advisor Carl Anheuser (Platt) is holding forth. When Helmsley shows Anheuser the report, Anheuser leaves the fundraiser and informs Helmsley that he now works for Anheuser.

Flash forward several years later. Unsuccessful science fiction writer Jackson Curtis (Cusack) is resorting to driving a limo for an overbearing Russian billionaire (Buric). He gets a weekend off to take his kids – angry Noah (James) and incontinent Lilly (Lily) – camping at Yellowstone, where he and estranged wife Kate (Peet) once canoodled.

He meets a whacko end-of-the-world nutjob named Charlie Frost (Harrelson) who tells him why he and Kate’s favorite lake has dried up, and in the best conspiracy theory fashion, that the government not only knows about it but has been feverishly building spaceships to save the human race, the locations of which he conveniently has a map to.

Initially Curtis dismisses Charlie’s ravings but when they start to come true, he hightails it back to L.A. in his stretch limo and races against the earthquakes that will soon render the City of Angels a disaster zone, which might bring the property values down somewhat. From then on, Curtis and his family along with Kate’s nebbish plastic surgeon boyfriend (McCarthy) try to stay one step ahead of Armageddon.

Those special effects are absolutely worth the price of admission. Realistic and spectacular at the same time, we watch things in the words of the immortal Farm Film Report “blow up real good” and then blow up real good some more. Fleets of helicopters fill the skies as do flocks of hysterical birds escaping their impending doom. Waves crash over the Himalayas like they were pebbles on a beach, and we lap up every mind-blowing second of it knowing that it’s a little ghoulish but nevertheless we love it.

Cusack makes for an attractive lead. He’s not really suited for the action hero genre being much more of a hip indie sort but he soldiers on like the trooper he is. Ejiofor is one of those actors who I tend not to think about as a really compelling performer but every time I see him I notice how good he is – I think he’ll be on my list of must-see actors soon. Glover makes for a dignified president but compared to the Morgan Freeman presidency we got in Deep Impact doesn’t hold up quite as well, but still it’s nice to see him. Peet and Platt are two outstanding actors who take what they can out of a script that really doesn’t deserve them.

The big problem here is that the script is so predictable and cliché that after awhile you just long for a twist or a turn that you aren’t expecting. Also the movie at nearly two and a half hours is about 20-30 minutes too long. Still, these are things that get swept aside when you are in your special effects happy place.

Emmerich in that respect has become the Irwin Allen of his generation, and 2012 might just be his masterwork in that regard. He takes some pretty good actors who know well enough to just go with the preposterous dialogue and lets loose his digital effects subcontractors. The results are great entertainment and if that’s what you’re after then you’re in the right theater.

REASONS TO GO: Spectacular apocalyptic special effects overwhelm the many script deficiencies. John Cusack even in his weaker performances is worth seeing.

REASONS TO STAY: The script is predictable and riddled with clichés. Character development is nearly non-existent.

FAMILY VALUES: A good deal of disaster violence and some occasional salty language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The character name of Jackson Curtis is the real name of rapper 50 Cent backwards (Curtis Jackson).

HOME OR THEATER: The eye-popping disaster scenes must be seen on the big screen to get the full experience.

2012

From the director of The Day After Tomorrow comes another end-of-the-world epic, making Roland Emmerich the modern-day Irwin Allen (younger folk not familiar with the name can google him). The Mayan calendar warns that the world will end in December, 2012 and there are several scientists – some fairly notable – who took that seriously. Not seriously enough however, as global cataclysmic mayhem ensues on a blockbuster scale.

The Damned United

(Sony Classics) Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney, Jim Broadbent. In the late 1960s, the most powerful football club – soccer to us Yanks – in the UK was Leeds United. They were a formidable dynasty with some of the top players in the sport and managed by Don Revie, one of the most revered coaches in the game. When Revie’s greatest rival Brian Clough was tapped to take over the United coaching reign, it would usher in one of the most notorious coaching situations in the history of the game.

Pirate Radio

(Focus) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, January Jones. In the swinging 60s, British rock and roll bands were changing the face of music and culture forever, yet the English people were only permitted to hear two hours a week of rock music. A group of enterprising and passionate DJs took to the high seas to launch their own pirate radio stations, free of government restrictions and rules. The British government didn’t take kindly to the open defiance of their authority and did everything in their power to shut them down. I’m told this is loosely based on actual events of the time but regardless the soundtrack to this movie is killer!